DADU: Lashing out at the Centre for its wrong policies, former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said the country’s economy has suffered huge losses during the present government’s tenure, which it has never witnessed over the past 70 years, des­pite having natural resou­rces like gas, coal and oil.

He said the PPP had prepared a master plan to develop the country as the party would soon come into power. Pakistan would prosper and flourish under this plan and cities, towns and rural areas of the country would be developed and basic amenities provided.

Mr Zardari claimed that Sindh had the potential and capacity to run the country, adding that whenever the PPP came to power, people thought they were in power.

He said the PPP always claimed to do small things but made big achievements. Giving an example, the former president said that after coming to power in 2008, he had not made any claim to bring the 18th Constitution Amendment, but he did so, besides providing rights to Balochistan and renaming NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Zardari said that had he claimed to achieve all these things earlier, he would not have been allowed to come to power. He claimed that he had made historic achievements which the other rulers had not been able to do when they were in power.

Without naming Prime Minister Imran Khan or his government, the PPP leader said they were not running the country properly, adding that the slogan of change had destroyed the country and its economy. The PPP would protect Pakistan from this destruction because this is “our country”, he added.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2021